Greenleaf

I love Greenleaf because it isnt too serious, the storylines are dramatic but not to dark. Its a nice break from reality, yes some bits may be abit unrealistic but I enjoy it and will continue to watch it!

This is a soap opera with the theme about the workings of a Black church. It has all the trappings of a day or nighttime soap, the woeful background music, the long, lingering glances and stares between the characters, everyone is beautiful or handsome, all walk around fully made up, even when they wake up in the mornings, etc. The dialog is "soapy", as are the sets that are filled with flowers, no matter the home in which the scene is set. It's clearly made for a G rating. As the "seasons" progress, it becomes more "soapy" and less interesting, making it really difficult to stay engaged. The story lines and intrigue lessens to the point of becoming a very watered down version of where it all started. Season 5 is basically a hurried attempt to wrap things up neatly, make sure everyone has a happy ending, and show a lot of "woman power". Not surprising since this was the focus of the "O" network. What on earth was the point of this other than to fill a slot on the "O" Network?

The story of a Southern mega-church headed by a family of sly hypocrites. Living in luxury and wielding influence how deep does the spirituality they claim really run? Are their sins products of their own human frailty exacerbated by a difficult world? Or are they bad people pretending to be holy?

It is about time a TV series dealt with the world of organized, profit-motivated religious organizations. A night-time soap take on an African-American mega-church in the Deep South is a novel approach to that telling the stories of people that have not yet been properly told in a fictional construct.

But my praise ends there. A solid cast in an interesting setting largely goes wasted in teleplay scripts so inept that they look like film school dropouts wrote them.

I love night-time soaps. I like the idea for this show as well as the story and the characters and the angle they take in relating the narrative. It is an imagined glimpse into a secret world of powerful people who profess piety and modesty but can't live it and we get to see them at their best and worst. I want to see it get multiple seasons.

But the scripts have to get better. They need to be outlined better and the dialogue needs to be more subtle in relaying information as well as doing so in a natural manner in which real people speak. So far they have tried to cram too much information in each sentence

The best of what Greenleaf has to offer can be seen in a family dinner conversation in the first episode. Ex-minister Grace has come back to the city of her father's megachurch for her sister's funeral, and mentions that she rarely goes to church in her new town. Her sister-in-law Kerrisa jumps on it, passive-aggressively asking why. Grace's mother insists on an answer, and the whole conversation devolves into a tense mess of resentment and jealousy. It is fascinating.

Much of my fascination with Greenleaf is that, for me, a white, big- city atheist, this world is so outside of my experience, in part because everyone's black, but more because everyone accepts Jesus as a very tangible figure in their lives. Only Grace is the sort of Christian I'm used to - the "I'm more spiritual than religious" type, and in her case she is torn between that and her evangelical roots.

Even though Jesus is so real for them, they are still human. One is clearly gay and trying hard not to be. The church head seems to be casually corrupt. Even Grace's odious pedophile uncle is probably a believer although he seems to flout everything in the bible.

There are some very interesting characters. Grace, her starchy mom and glad-handing dad, and most notably Kerrisa, played by Kim Hawthorne as a controlling, anxious woman resentful that following all the rules hasn't made her happy. She's awful, but also tragic.

I often object to character-driven dramas without much story, but in this case, I feel the story arc lays an element of artifice over these fascinating dynamics. Grace stays in town to play detective, looking for proof of her uncle's crimes, and while this story would be fine if it felt like just a part of the drama, its centrality overshadows the series' more subtle aspects.

I like Greenleaf, but I feel I would like it more if everyone just stayed at the dinner table forever.

There is heart in this show. Now, as an atheist I would expect that the religious aspect of the show would bother me at some point, but it doesnt. If you like dramas, and House of Cards-esque settings, this might be your thing. It really is a great show. Not perfect, but if you get into the storylines, it will keep you hooked till the very end.